


Bloom

by Aiisling



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aiisling/pseuds/Aiisling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world changed in the year 2033, on the third day of the third month and (though no one knew until the morning) on the third hour. Later, they would give a name to what had happened: Magic. </p><p>Years pass, and Sherlock Holmes discovers John Watson's hidden gift. And with it, the danger they both face. </p><p>Some secrets are not meant to be read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John is never quite sure which of his secrets will show on his skin on a given day. 

Some days go like this: He rolls out of his tent and stumbles into the already oppressive heat. Above, the sun is scorching in a cloudless sky. In the distance are ragged mountains torn raw by wind and sand. 

He passes the mess tent where half his platoon is laughing and shoving oatmeal in their mouths. McDuff is levitating spoons in the air, making them grind obscenely while one of the other soldiers hums a Barry White song. John keeps going to the latrines. He takes care of his business, finds the barrel of water they leave out to splash their faces –not enough to spare for proper showers— and looks down to see the name of his first girlfriend written in cursive along the edge of his hand. He grins and rubs a finger along the curling letters, pausing where an ‘I’ was dotted with a heart. He’d dreamt of her the night before, something illogical with pirates and their freshman English teacher. It’s a good memory. He splashes water on his face and doesn’t see the copper colored veins twining along the skin of his arms. 

 

* * *

 

 

But for every good day, there are days like this:

John scrambles out of his little bed in his little flat. He is not screaming but he is tense, so tense. The battle fog is on him and he gropes in the dark for the M16 he sleeps with. The Taliban have snuck bombs into their camp, bombs strapped to the too-thin chests of little boys and girls. He is laying on the floor, taking cover, when the smell of damp penetrates the fog. Slowly, he remembers that he is in London. Slowly, the sands and flashes of heat fade. 

John gets up despite his protesting knee. He stumbles to his desk, his face absolutely still, and pulls open a drawer. Takes out the pistol inside and lays it on the table. Thinks about putting the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger. 

But no, he has made a bargain with himself. His hand, when it reaches out, grabs the small hand mirror instead of the gun. When he looks in the glass, John sees splashes of crimson tattooed across his face. He tilts the mirror towards his neck, to better see the names he knows will be carved there. They haven’t disappeared since he left Afghanistan; he will not let them disappear. John sighs, and puts the gun away. The mirror he leaves on the table. 

 

 


	2. New World Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world changed in the year 2033, on the third day of the third month and (though no one knew until the morning) on the third hour. Later, they would give a name to what had happened: Magic.
> 
> Years pass, and Sherlock Holmes discovers John Watson's hidden gift. And with it, the danger they both face.
> 
> Some secrets are not meant to be read.

The world changed in the year 2033, on the third day of the third month and (though no one knew until the morning) on the third hour.

When people woke up that morning, they knew something was different the way a dog can sense danger. It was indistinct, a feeling in the air and nothing else, and yet… they knew. For some of them, the changes were quite obvious. They looked in the mirror to see eyes that glowed in the dark, or skin that was covered in pictures and words that, until previously, had been hidden deep inside the secret places of their minds. For others, the changes were not apparent until they stepped out into the street, bewildered, and found that they could simply lift off into the air. They got the urge to lift cars, and found they could; some could speak to the trees and the grass and others to clouds in the sky.

Later, when the world’s governments met in secret and in public and pooled what data they could, they realized that almost a third of the world had awoken that morning with something that could only be termed _magical_. 

Magic had returned to the world. And with it, everything had changed. 

It was more than the gifts. Charlatans selling fortunes in back alleys suddenly found that they could actually see the future, if they squinted and didn’t try to look too far ahead. Babies born with films covering their eyes actually could see the future. When a man broke a mirror, his bad luck became a very real, very virulent thing. 

John Watson, age six, woke up that morning with pink lotuses blossoming on the palms of his hands. He smiled happily when he came down to the breakfast table to see his mother cooking pancakes at the stove. 

“Good morning,” he said, his voice lisping due to a tooth lost in the front of his mouth. “Why’re you covered in apple seeds?”

His mother (who had been thinking of a childhood love, a girl named Jane she had kissed beneath an apple tree) gasped, and dropped the pan she’d been holding. It cracked, and a sliver of metal zipped across the room to scratch her son’s bare feet. When she picked up his foot, she discovered that she’d been given a Gift of her own. The skin healed beneath her hand as if it had never been broken. 

Later, Mary Watson realized the significance of what her son had asked her. She was the first to realize that John’s gift ran two ways; his secrets showed on his skin, yes, but he could also read the secrets of others on their skin. She was also the first to realize what it would mean for John were he to be discovered, and she was the one who taught him how to keep it secret, to keep him safe. 

She was killed two years after that morning in the kitchen, by a drunk driver. Her gift (a catch, there was always a catch) did not allow her to heal herself, and so she bled out on the pavement, wondering what would happen to her John without her there. John was left with a jealous and ungifted older sibling, and a father who was already drowning Mary’s memory in alcohol. 


	3. The First Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world changed in the year 2033, on the third day of the third month and (though no one knew until the morning) on the third hour. Later, they would give a name to what had happened: Magic.
> 
> Years pass, and Sherlock Holmes discovers John Watson's hidden gift. And with it, the danger they both face.
> 
> Some secrets are not meant to be read.

Sherlock barely notices the unassuming man that walks with Mike into his lab. A potential flatmate, of course. Mike knows how he is, and doesn’t often expose him to the public at large. Beside him, Mike is sweating, waiting to see how Sherlock will respond.

The new man is at first uninteresting despite the images that scroll across his skin. Sherlock watches as a skull flashes on the small man’s cheek. The lyrics to a Johnny Cash song (yes, Sherlock does know who that is) curl around his fingers, the backs of his hands. A small thundercloud hovers above his left eyebrow. Sherlock stifles a yawn.

Sherlock considers those with that particular gift to be boring (obvious) and besides, he doesn’t like to cheat. There are other gifts, practical gifts, that he values. Gifts like his own, which allows him to go days on end with neither food nor sleep. 

A familiar refrain about a train that keeps on coming pops into his mind, unbidden. Before he can banish it, he sees a flash of amusement on the stranger’s face that he can’t quite place. 

Hmm. 

“Bit different from my day,” the stranger quickly says, as if to cover whatever just happened. Sherlock narrows his eyes and puts the moment in the back of his mind palace for later dissection. He asks Mike for his phone — “I prefer to text”— and that’s when John Watson really becomes interesting. 

“Oh, here,” John Watson says, fishing around in his pocket. Sherlock sees a flash of something on John’s palms—something colorful and dark at the same time—beforeJohn walks over and holds out a mobile too expensive for an army veteran. “Use mine.”

Sherlock makes a noise of surprise, then thanks him. He wouldn’t have pegged the man for an overly helpful type, certainly not anything like Molly or Mike, both more defined by their eagerness to please than any other trait. Sherlock takes the phone, begins to text. 

“Afghanistan or Iraq,” he says, and it’s not really a question. 

Next to him John stiffens. When Sherlock glances at him from the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of something close to fear on John’s face. Suddenly the images on John’s skin (a list of names scrawled against his neck; a line of red exes beneath his tired eyes; a button, like from a child’s doll, beneath the shell of his left ear) blur. In their place pops a series of ocean symbols, a small yellow bird, the lines from an 80’s pop song. It is as if John’s skin is covering itself. He is hiding something. 

“Iraq,” John says, slowly. And, of course, “how did you know?”

He listens with barely contained tension as Sherlock explains. But then a series of exclamation marks erupt on his skin, and the nerves slowly give way to the kind of excitement that Sherlock can smell on his own breath when he’s on a hunt. For some undefinable reason, Sherlock does not cow John. A rod of steel appears from nowhere to take the place of this small, unassuming man’s spine. Sherlock watches as John listens to his deductions, his chin high, his eyes guarded. When he tosses his name and their soon-to-be address at the man, Sherlock walks away with the feeling that he has just been shown something wonderful.

He goes to the mortuary to retrieve his riding crop. There is another text from Lestrade—suspicious questions like, “how are you, mate?” and “what have you been up to?” that indicate he will soon be called on for a case. He thinks of the recent rash of suicides, and allows a small spark of excitement to bubble in his chest. For the rest of the day he forgets about John Watson in the merry contemplation of murder. 

John does not forget him. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is unbeta'd, and really just for fun. Found it in my files and thought I'd post it. 
> 
> And then I got distracted by real life and the book I was publishing on Amazon.com (Path of Pins by Hannah Kollef :D ) and...uh...sorry!
> 
> Thank you commenters who reminded me that I had a story to finish.


	4. The Flat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world changed in the year 2033, on the third day of the third month and (though no one knew until the morning) on the third hour. Later, they would give a name to what had happened: Magic.
> 
> Years pass, and Sherlock Holmes discovers John Watson's hidden gift. And with it, the danger they both face.
> 
> Some secrets are not meant to be read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have noticed that there are a lot of song references in this story (well, 3 so far, but more are coming!). I made a playlist on youtube so you can listen to them in order of the story if you're so inclined! 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfxZRBm3EY&list=PLuTYxk5EYDBQNwTQ63QbMFlpv1AOk8HmH

John is leaning on his cane outside of 221B Baker Street. He has stood there for almost ten minutes without knocking, a lone figure in oatmeal-tinted beige, too short & sandy-haired for the cold London air. The wind gusts: he tries to move, but his feet don’t listen. Instead, he stands, and stares, and wonders what the hell he thinks he’s doing. 

That first morning—his mother covered in apple seeds—runs through his head on repeat, always ending with her warning him to hide himself and what he can do. Yet here he is, about to move in with a detective who, if half of what Mike says is true, has near omniscient powers of observation. 

John sighs. Shifts from his good leg to his bad and back again. A roommate is a good idea. He spends too much time alone. But Sherlock Holmes…? The man read him like a book when they’d only just met. John is oblivious when his skin shifts with his thoughts and the words to the Stone’s _Paint it Black_ start scrolling from the palms of his hands to reach up and cover his neck, his face, like swarming spiders. He has to trust in himself, in the defense measures his mother made him find when he was small, that cover his skin with surface things to hide his inner truths. People of his kind—with his Gift—are not supposed to be able to hide their abilities, or so is the public perception. Privately, John believes that this is why he’s survived so long. 

The wind shifts again, and the disciplined soldier within him rises to make the call. He cannot move into 221B, no matter the pull, no matter the strange connection he feels to Sherlock Holmes. There are some secrets that cannot be shared, and the world cannot know what John sees. Better his lonely bed. Better the gun. 

Ignoring the pang in his gut, he turns and begins to walk down the sidewalk toward the Bakerloo Tube station. 

“Hey Picasso!” 

John looked up at the sound of the profanity being hurled towards him. He lifts an eyebrow at the three teenage boys who approach, reads the mischief that crawls in neon graffitied gremlins across their skins. Their leader is easy to make out. If his swagger didn’t give him away, the general’s star stamped on his forehead would. He is also gifted, but John can’t tell what the purple lightning tattooed on his knuckles indicates. The other two are followers. Nonthreatening. It is the leader he will have to deal with. 

He almost laughs when the first boy reaches the sidewalk in front of him. A fight? They want to fight him? He smells violence on the air and feels a welcome rush of adrenaline. He unconsciously shifts his weight, his right leg inching forward into a fighting stance as his body remembers what his mind does not.

“What’cha doin, Picasso? You waitin’ for someone?” 

A cruel sneer widens the boy’s thin mouth.  

“Yes,” John says, voice neutral. “And I suggest you be on your way.”

The three immediately burst into the kind of raucous laughter not heard outside of Council Estates and dark alleyways. John’s eyebrow lifts higher. 

“Ya know, Pic,” the leader grins. “I like that cane. Give it here.”

John says nothing. 

“Well?” The boy is no longer grinning. He licks his lips. A dangerous gleam comes into his eyes. 

“Give it,” he repeats. 

John stares. Dares him. 

The boy lunges for the cane, at the same time kicking out at John’s bad knee. It’s clumsy, but strong enough that it would bruise John’s leg if the boy connected. Instead, John’s lets his cane fly forward, swinging it beneath the boy’s outstretched leg and knocking him onto his back. When he opens his eyes, John is pressing the cane just below his adam’s apple, just hard enough to hurt. The other two run off.

“It’s not nice to call people names,” John says quietly. He presses the cane a little bit harder, aware of the exact ratio between how much damage he’s doing (almost none) and how much pain the boy is in (enough to remember later). 

“You…stupid…Pic!” The boy wheezes. John’s eyes widen as the purple along his hands begins to glow, and a buzzing fills the air. A jolt of electricity jumps up his cane and through his arms. 

Oh. That’s what that meant. 

It hurts; but John knows pain. The shock only serves to increase his adrenaline, and even as it falls from his hand he reaches down to pick it up again. In a movement too quick to follow he’s flipped it around and knocked the boy hard on the head with the handle. 

“Ow!” The boy protests. The buzzing stops. “That hurt, you old shit!”

“It was meant to. Now fuck off and find your friends,” John says, calmly. He leans on his cane once more and watches as the boy scrambles to his feet and chases after his friends. A thrill that has nothing to do with the boy’s Gift is zipping through his veins.

“You enjoyed that.” A voice like velvet floats over John’s shoulder. He turns to see Sherlock on the sidewalk behind him, smiling slightly, the same look in his eyes that John imagines he uses on microscopes & bodies. A slow roll begins in the pit of his stomach. 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“You enjoyed that,” Sherlock repeats, all patrician and dangerous. “Look at your hands if you don’t believe me.”

John glances down at the back of his hands where they’re folded around the cane. That eyebrow quirks again. 

Wild flowers are bursting in technicolor glory across his skin. 

He’s…happy. 

“Huh,” John murmurs. He straightens, and looks at the grey sky above, annoyance warring with excitement over his worn face. Then, “Didn’t know our new apartment was in such a rough neighborhood.”

Sherlock grins, and the wind ruffles the black wings of his greatcoat. “It’s not. Well. Not usually. Shall we?” Sherlock asks, and turns towards the door without waiting for an answer. John watches as he knocks three times with the antique door knocker, feels the knocks like electric shocks in his chest. 

_Paint it Black_ erupts once more along his arms. Sherlock doesn’t comment as John limps over to stand next to him. They make an odd pair: a raven and a tired hound. No one comes, and Sherlock knocks again, this time leaving the knocker at a crooked angle. This time they hear a shuffling inside, and a muffled “oh dear.”

“Forgive the landlady.” Sherlock looks at him from the corner of his eye, a smile curling lips that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo. “She’s somehow deluded herself into thinking she’s my mother.”

“Can’t imagine why she’d want you,” John says, straight-faced, not sure if he’s joking or not. “You’re a bit insufferable, you know.”

Sherlock snorts. “It’s been mentioned.”

Just then the door opens, and the landlady welcomes Sherlock with a hug and a fond pat on the cheek. As John receives the same treatment, he catches Sherlock’s eye over Mrs. Hudson’s shoulder. They grin. 

 

~

 

Later, Sherlock jumps around the dusty, crowded room in excitement at the deaths of three people. He runs from the flat on light feet, joyous cries of “Murder!” dancing in the air behind him. 

When he comes back—when he asks John to join him—when he beckons with tantalizing _danger_ , John thinks of the youth on the sidewalk and the flowers on his hands and follows. The cane stays behind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this story continues to get bigger than I wanted it to.   
> Ugh. 
> 
> I'm writing this in episodes, so from now on we'll be skipping forward a little bit. I probably won't include everything from the TV show, but rather other little moments. And I promise the bigger tension in the story is coming soon. But...meh. I don't know how long this will end up being. It was supposed to be a drabble! Ahh. 
> 
> Also, just a note: "Picasso" is a pretty rude slang term for someone with John's gift, where you can see their thoughts/feelings on their skin. There will be other slang terms introduced to the story as we continue!


End file.
